After years of ministry leadership and speaking, I’ve noticed a trend that doesn’t get much attention. It’s the lifecycle of a church leader.
Have you ever met 50-year-olds who try to act like they’re 20? It’s weird and unnatural. I’m not saying you have to wear Hawaiian shirts because you’re 50. But people expect certain levels of maturity at different points in life. Ministry leadership is much the same way.
This is personal observation, and I’m still working through it. But here is my challenge to everyone involved in ministry leadership. Know where God has placed you in your lifecycle as a leader. Don’t despise where you are. Instead, embrace it with an attitude of faith and obedience. Then trust that God will use you where you are more than you’ll ever know.
Ministry Leadership
Consider these stages of the leadership lifecycle, whether in children’s ministry or other areas of church work.
1. Learning
When you’re starting out, don’t pretend you know everything, because you don’t. Right now, I know less than I thought I knew when I started! Ask more questions than you answer. Email, call, and connect with leaders who are further down the road than you.
The moment you feel you’ve arrived, you’re in trouble (and the last one to know it). In this season, you need to observe, grow, learn and formulate ideas. Get big vision! In some ways, we never move on from here.
Also build your team. But lean into God more than you lean into anything or anyone else.
2. Doing
Here is where you start pulling your ministry team together. You act on those things God places on your heart. This is also where you start finding your voice for your generation. This doesn’t mean you will travel and speak. It means you will use the skills you’ve learned to reach your generation.
For every generation, God has a means to reach them. As church workers, it’s our job to find that means and speak his message to glorify him, not ourselves.
In the doing phase of ministry, you’re applying what you’ve learned. You’re typically too busy to help others, because you’re in the thick of what God has called you to do.
